Nevada Books

This was an excellent book for giving the feel for the south and its unique natural environment. As usual for Barr, the blend of mystery,romance, nd community together with a special understanding of the environment made this a really fun novel to read. In addition, her understanding of the challenges of leadership makes the novel even more relevant to our times.

I'm a very fast reader, easily starting and finishing a book within a day or two. I bought this book, along with another Anna Pidgeon book, back in June, and have been trying since then to get any further than the third chapter in either book. I pick up the books, start them, plug through the first chapter, make myself get through the second, and by the third chapter both books are being laid back down. Over Christmas I found myself with no book to read, so out of desperate boredom, I picked up Deep South, again, and was determined to finish it.

I did finish the book, and I know I'll never read another book written by Nevada Barr. This is an author who literally writes her stories to death. Every sentence takes the long way around, and so often by the time I finished reading a paragraph I'd have to just go back and read it again, forcing myself to hold onto that long winding train of thought.

Descriptive writing is good, it's a talent, but there's a definite line at which you cross over into utter tediousness. There were also small inconsistencies, which immediately lowered my expectations of this writer, for example, when describing the hood over the body's head, Ms. Barr writes about only the nose and part of a cheek being visible. Then, a few paragraphs later she writes "...and she hoped there was a head under there!"...well, if the nose and a cheek were visible then it's obvious there WAS indeed a head under that hood! Slip ups like that, slight as they may be, cause me to lose respect for the writing.

Anyway...sometimes a sentence, or a paragraph, can be presented simply and directly and have far more effect than a sentence or paragraph that is overstocked, crammed jammed full of descriptions and qualifiers and adjectives and nouns and pronouns and verbs and adverbs and...well, you get the point.

As I said before, this author literally writes her stories to death.

Set in Mississippi, this is a great fun book. No, it's not going to pass as high art, but it is a page turner, especially when you get about half way through.

There's a love interest also, for those into that sort of thing, and then the "who dunnit" aspect which keeps you on your seat.

I was impressed that Barr has actually worked as a park ranger and it shows in the details in this book. Her plotting is also excellent and I'll look forward to reading more of her works.

I found this book in a discount bin and decided to give it a shot. Glad I did as it turned out to be so much better than the usual stuff "they" try to sell you. While it's not perfect, it is pretty darn good.

This was my second Nevada Barr book - the first I read was Hidden Truth, which I found entertaining and well written. I enjoyed this book up until the last 50 pages or so. I got the feeling that the writer was struggling with a suitable/plausible ending to an otherwise enjoyable story. It dragged on a bit and the final who-done-it & more so - why - felt weak and far fetched for such a big story.

I did enjoy the info and data on the NPS, racism and sexism in the south, and the strength of the character. But perhaps the end could have included more info about topics such as did the people behind the alligator incident ever get prosecuted?

I have not traveled the Natchez Trace since the parkway was build, but the old road is one from which not even Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame, returned. The Trace is steeped in mystery, death and kudzu, which covers everything if allowed free rein.
Anna Pigeon accepts a promotion and finds, a not unexpected wall of resentment, from male Park Service members under her supervision. What she didn't expect to find on her first watch was the murder of a popular high school coed, whose life had dredged up resentment.
DEEP SOUTH by Nevada Barr leads the reader alone with Anna to a fine conclusion. No guessing on this one, you will be surprised along with Anna when Barr tips her pen.
Nash Black, author of WRITING OF A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.

I bought this book because I'm a poker fan and casual player. I love reading dramatic stories surrounding Las Vegas. However, I found myself more interested in Andy Beal throughout the book than any of the stories surrounding the games being played. Maybe it was my entrepreneur/business side coming out, but for pure poker alone this book wasn't that interesting. If there is a biography about Andy Beal, I'll be sure to read that next.

In some ways this could be considered a story about negotiating terms and conditions - these factors were key in determining the outcome of "the game". Very interesting backstories about some of the players that appear at so many final tables of big tournaments.

This is a great book, I believe for a poker player although someone who wants insights into the High Stakes world would also enjoy it. It was absolutely riveting and it was extremely difficult to lay it down. An exceptionally fast read. I would recommend the book wholeheartedly. The ending was a bit off with the author forcibly interjectedly himself into the story. I found that trivial and quite unnecessary.

This book was very interesting and hard to put down. It talks about a lot of the poker pros that live and play in Las Vegas and L.A. And is a good insight into some of the highest stakes poker games in the world. If you ever wanted to know what it would be like to be a high stakes poker player you should read this book. It is also very interesting to read about what goes on behind the scenes in the high stakes poker rooms in Las Vegas.

Michael Craig does a great job of mixing reportorial style with novelistic pacing. He tells the story of Andy Beal, a very rich man even among rich men, whose motivations for taking on the greatest poker players in the world by definition transcend the money. At the same time, he raised the stakes for the heads-up hold 'em games to levels never before seen -- even among the highest stakes players who joined financial forces to accept the challenge. Craig also gives insight into the "gambler's mindset" -- that itch that sits in the mind of anyone who gets off in a casino -- as it applies to the game of poker. This is the most interesting part for me, as poker is the only widely spread casino game where the house's advantage is 100% but capped (in other words, they charge a fee or "rake", rather than making money off of a statistical advantage). Thus, Poker combines the skill and gambling -- which is why it attracts some of the brightest people you will find in a casino. Michael digs into this phenomenon, both in his interviews of Beal and of many of the successful players who played against Beal.

Retired cop turned crime consultant Tony Valentine lives quietly in Florida while doing freelance work for casinos, helping them catch cheats. To avoid his estranged son Gerry, he accepts a job at the aging Acropolis on the Vegas Strip, where casino owner Nick Nicocropolis is sure he's being ripped off by a hustler and possibly one of his dealers. The hustler walks, but the casino has blackjack dealer Nola Briggs arrested, sure she's involved, though they need Valentine to help prove it.

The first thing Valentine has to do is identify the hustler now going by the name Frank Fontaine. After checking his database and reviewing other clues, he thinks it can be no other than the legendary Sonny Fontana, his personal nemesis, who supposedly had his head crushed in a car door several years earlier. The waters get muddied further when the lawyer Nola hires has a grudge against Fontana/Fontaine and hires a thug to take him out. Meanwhile, interesting details about Nola's past relationship with both Sonny Fontana and Nick Nicocropolis come to light. Just as things in Vegas heat up worse than the desert at midday, Valentine's son goes missing, most likely the victim of Fontana's thugs. Torn between a need to run to his son's aid and his need to take down Sonny Fontana for good before he can bankrupt the Acropolis, Tony finds himself in the thick of things as he figures out Sonny Fontana's complex plan to rip off the casino. And all along, one question hangs in the air: is Nola guilty?

When I first started the book, I found it enjoyable, but was ready to relegate it to just one more mystery series with a twist. However, Swain's characters won me over. There is more going on here than just a series mystery that happens to be set in Las Vegas with a gambling backdrop. Instead, it's more like a romp through Sin City with its quirky locals while Valentine unravels a convoluted set of clues, at the same time he ponders his rocky relationship with his son, his friendship with his next-door neighbor Mabel, and wonders if he's ready to move on to a new relationship with a woman after the death of his wife, since lovely Roxanne at the front desk of the Acropolis starts making some overt moves.

When it's all said and done, Valentine wraps up the mystery and makes some headway with his personal issues. Valentine himself is quite a likeable character with not only street smarts, but what he calls "grift sense," an ability to sense a con even when he's not even quite sure what it is. The other characters are a mishmash of witty old ladies, cops, security experts, scumbags, and just ordinary people going about living their lives. For a mystery series slightly different than the norm, Tony Valentine is your man.

Crime

By MARILYN STASIO
Published: July 8, 2001

Have you heard the one about the canny granny who won a pot of money by card-counting on her rosary beads? How about the mother-and-son team whose method of palming cards at the blackjack table was ''pure poetry''? And what about the sweet techniques of guys like Jake the Snake and Larry the Lightbulb? James Swain, who came to his expertise on gambling hustles by way of his skills as a sleight-of-hand magician, uses the crooked play of these inspired cheats

to pull us into GRIFT SENSE (Pocket Books, [...]), a flashy, funny novel about a cool [...] to break the bank at a Las Vegas casino.

When Nick Nicocropolis gets wind that someone is out to bring down his establishment, the grandly named but barely solvent Acropolis, he does the smart thing by calling in Tony Valentine, an ex-cop with a nose for a good grift. ''I can feel when a hustle's going down, even if I don't know exactly what it is,'' says Tony, who tests his instinct against his database of some 5,000 known hustlers and comes up with the profile of a dead man. (So much for science.) Although it's slightly maddening to watch Tony conducting off-the-premises research when he could be walking us through some of the other swindles going down on the casino floor, Swain knows how to misdirect the eye during the deal.

I don't personally read a lot of mysteries, usually only those where I'm drawn to the subject matter or setting. Such was the case with Grift Sense: a setting of Las Vegas, casinos, and gambling grabbed my interest and this book found its way onto my shelf. When I eventually got around to starting this book, I was hooked almost instantly.

Grift Sense is the first foray into the mystery genre by gambling expert James Swain. Swain is able to use this expertise to set-up some seemingly ingenious scams and to show us the inner workings of casino security. Swain's protagonist is one Tony Valentine, a retired Atlantic City cop with a wealth of experience dealing with casino scammers. He is now putting this experience to use working as a security consultant for various casinos across the country. This case he gets sucked into draws him out of his complacent Florida retirement into the heart of the action in Las Vegas. From there it's nonstop twists and turns until the final showdown with the bad guys. Swain does an excellent job of keeping the plot moving and keeping you guessing right up to the end.

As far as characters go, Swain does a good job of assembling a fun cast of interesting characters. Tony comes across well as the experienced investigator who is always a couple of steps ahead of everyone else. Mabel Struck is Tony's slightly eccentric neighbor who evidently gets her kicks running prank ads in the classifieds. I could see some kind of relationship eventually developing between her and Tony. Once Tony gets to Vegas, we meet several other interesting characters including the seedy, womanizing casino owner and his slightly incompetent head of security, a potential love interest who works the hotels front desk, and of course the bad guy.

Overall this is a fun, fast mystery and a great start to a new series. Recommended to any mystery buff or to anyone into Las Vegas and casino gambling. Also, look for the other Tony Valentine mysteries: Funny Money, Sucker Bet, Loaded Dice, and Mr. Lucky.

Grift Sense is the first of what has now become a series of five Tony Valentine novels by author James Swain (currently working on book six). I read Swain's latest, Mr. Lucky, first, and it was good enough to cause me to go back and start at the beginning. And Grift Sense was not a disappointment either. Swain is a talented and very imaginative writer who has carved out a nice little niche of a storyline that is timely and fits in well with the current popularity of casino and televised poker tournaments.

Swain's main character in all his books is Tony Valentine, a retired Atlantic City cop, living in Palm Harbor, Florida. In Grift Sense Swain explains how Tony got his start as a consultant to the casinos and how he established his reputation as THE authoritative source for ferreting out those headline grabbing gambling scams that can ruin a casino.

In Grift Sense, Tony receives an overnight package containing video security tapes from the Acropolis, an older Vegas casino. Seems a stranger had taken the same blackjack dealer for more than $50,000 over a period of a couple days, and the only plausible explanation is cheating. No one on the security staff was able to spot how the player had cheated and so they turned to Tony. Recognizing the potential this scam has for ruining the Acropolis, Tony agrees to help and hops the next first class flight to Vegas. As the story plays out, Tony discovers he is on the trail of one of the most hated and feared scam artists of all time, and someone that everyone had thought was dead.

Swain leads the reader into a house of mirrors with twists and turns as unexpected as they ingenious. Grift Sense is as entertaining as it is enlighteningly educational. Sure to be enjoyed by everyone who likes a good mystery. My lone complaint about this book and the other Swain book I read is that it is hard not to pull for the scam artist who is sticking it to the casinos, after all, whoever heard of the casinos being lumped in with the good guys?

...describes the writing in this first of a series. Very well done with insider knowledge.

Dragon's Gate seems to be quite the marvelous book to read. I always favored the Chinese culture, and it was pleasing to learn more about it. Though I didn't really understand half of it. It didn't seem to get through my head when it was mentioned Otter was adopted by a new woman, who was married to Squeaky, but had feelings for another man, his father. I wasn't exactly sure whether his adopted father was Squeaky or not, which threw me off course slightly. However, the book was very enjoyable. It was somewhat humorous, since Braid seems to be a gurgler when someone says something wrong. It was strange though, how they called America 'The Golden Mountain.' I was somewhat confused more than half the time, but I was able to understand the story. It was exciting when he acctually had the chance to visit 'The Golden Mountain,' as well. Out of all events, I liked three the most. I adored how Braid continued to clear his throat and gurgle while Otter's friend carried on with speaking. It was amazing to learn that a special drug, opium, was sold in China after the Opium War, causing several addicts spending their money, resulting to poverty. What I truly liked the most though was the fact that Otter's father had worse English than Otter, when his father had been working on 'The Golden Mountain' for years. I would definately recommend this book to those who enjoy historical fiction, at ages ten and up.

The Chinese culture has always been fascinated by dragons. They have many sculptures, drawings and stories about dragons. The book Dragon Keeper is no exception. It is about a slave girl who befriends a dragon and goes out on a quest to get to a mystical place called Ocean.

The story starts with a lowly slave girl living on a mountain in the far borders of the Han Empire (which was the ruling force back then in China.) The girl lives with the Imperial Dragon Keeper, her master, Lan. It was Lan's job to take care of the imperial dragons, but he got lazy and the slave girl took his job and took care of the beasts. Then, when one of the two last dragons die, the girl feels remorse and starts to take better care of the last one. Then, one day, the girl is forced to escape with the dragon, when an evil dragon hunter finds her and the dragon out.

During the long journey to Ocean, the girl learns her name, befriends people (who turn into her enemies), and fights villains. The book was very enjoyable because of its excitement when you didn't know what was going to happen next. The riddles sometimes go unsolved in the book, which I really didn't like, but if you do solve them it makes you want to read it more. Over all, the book was pretty good, and if you like dragons or the Chinese culture, you should get the book. Dragon Keeper had many mysteries and surprises around every corner, so stay close to the dragons, but keep away from the tigers.

Dragon's Gate is a book that orbits around the great bond of friendship that can ease pain. I am very fond of the characters as they are who grab the reader to read on. The book takes place at the time of America's construction of the railroad (mid 1800's) and as we all know many Chinese men were the reason for its climb. So we follow the main character, Otter in his journey to the land where his father and uncle work and with him meet many of his disappointments and surprises. I myself have learned a lot as the author dresses the reader in Otter's shoes. We see the unruly way the Chinese men were treated despite all that they lost to give to The Land of the Golden Mountain (America) what they had planned. I also appreciate the author's great talent of figurative language. The scenery created with his words really helps compose the outlook of whatever situation the author is trying to describe; which in my opinion aids the reader in "living" the story.
I recommend this book to whoever is (or vaguely is) familiar with the situation occurring at that time. The book is an easy read and students starting from middle school level and above might enjoy and understand its adventure. Dragon's Gate will definitely enhance the readers knowledge of the situation at that time especially because history never recorded the happenings. As wonderful as the language use was in the book, it still felt that it needed to be more tangible to the reader, and the events happened too fast you could find yourself lost a couple of times at each chapter. Some situations were very vague.

Dragon's Gate was an interesting read. The characters came to life, and the situations brought upon a reality which no one could have possibly imagined to be real. I loved the descriptive language that was used throughout the story. It made things look real through the perspective of another person. In a way, it gave me a better feel of the atmosphere and setting. The characters itself were charming yet original or life-like. I say this because we often feel that the characters in most stories are too non-realistic and we don't often find similarities between us and the characters. The characters in Dragon's Gate allowed most of the readers to learn from a more realistic perspective and feeling which also gave room to finding similarities and familiar emotions we often face in every day life. For example, in reality, how would we feel about sacrificing our lives to save others? I for one, must say that the very thought scares me yet at the same time we feel we must. This book makes you ponder how you value yourself, and as you read through the enchanting pages you find yourself asking, "Did I do the same thing when I was put in this situation?" or, "Is this what you really do?" and so forth. You may also find that as you read the book, your feelings unwind and you find yourself bound to the characters themselves.
I would personally recommend this book to ages 12 and above. I believe that it's both enriching and informative and will allow them to broaden their minds while receiving a general knowledge and understanding in return.

This book is officialy the most boring and worst book that i have ever read. I didnt find any part of this book exciting or good. The whole thing was boring. I had to read this book for school with a group of 5 or 6 other people. Every single person in the group hated the book. I hated this book.

What can I say -- Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon series is the best. This book is so descriptive as the firestorm races over Anna as she is huddled in her "Shake and Bake" tent. I could feel the heat! And then there are the cold nights in a burned forest. I was freezing!! Thanks to Nevada Barr for another great book.

FIRESTORM is my favorite Anna Pigeon. I've never been in the western US, but live near Daniel Boone National Forest where the threat of fire is always present.
Nevada Barr's description of Anna survival under a pop-tent is so vivid the sweat will be running down your neck just reading about it. This is one scary book, because the tension never lags, fire roars past and now Anna and her companions must survive a winter storm in the midst of ashes. If a killer will allow them.
A good fast read that should be ranked as a classic.
Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.

This book is very well written and does a great job of keeping your interest to the very end. Although not my favorite of Ms. Barr's it certainly does not disappoint when it comes to following how Anna Pigeon works to figure out who dunnit. Ms. Barr's ability to describe scenery and her knowledge of enviro-type topics help to make the Anna Pigeon series of mysteries quite enjoyable to read. Her ability to describe the scenery and the plant and animal life present in each scenario helps to bring a sense of reality to what you are reading and makes you feel more like you are there.

The breathless positive reviewers of this book puzzle me. Their experience was distinctly not my experience. I've read 3 of Barr's books now and this was definitely *not* the pick of the litter. At Barr's best, she's a 4. This one was somewhere between a 2 and 3...but since I can't award half stars, I'll give it a 2. This was definitely the worst of the three books by Barr I've read thus far.

Here's the plot in a nutshell.

A group of rangers including our heroine, Anna Pigeon, are brought together from various national parks and agencies to fight a fire in Lassen National Park in Northern California. When the fire unexpectedly flares, a group of 9 are caught off guard and with no path of retreat from the rapidly advancing flames. Their only hope for survival is to crawl inside their fire-proof emergency tents, burrow into the ground, and hope that the fire will literally flash over the top of them so quickly that they won't be baked to death...merely scorched.

When the inferno blasts over, it feels like hours but is just minutes. They are singed, some quite seriously, but alive. However, although 9 people crawled into tents, only 8 people emerge: one literally has a knife in his back. And, the fire has felled trees across the only road in to the area, nor will the weather allow rescue helicopters to reach them. The 8 survivors are trapped indefinitely without food as it begins to snow and temperatures begin to drop -- and one of them is a killer.

Sounds enticing enough. But the ensuing days as the 8 struggle to survive are gray, cold, eventless, and populated with miserable people struggling to maintain their sanity and civility.

Basically, that describes how I felt trying to perservere through the remainder of the book. Yeah, I made it. But it wasn't a pleasant experience.

Barr decides to make the victim in this book a man who is universally scrorned by all who know him. And in so doing, we don't care that he's dead, we don't care why he died, and we don't care who killed him. There is just no incentive for the reader here to really care about finding the killer. In fact, I just couldn't bring myself to care about *any* of the characters or details in this story, doubly sad since I live in that part of the country and many of the towns and landmarks Barr describes are my stomping grounds that would normally have been very interesting to me. Oh, and Barr -- for reasons known only to herself -- felt obliged to once again introduce a homosexual lover subplot into the story. Why she feels compelled to insert this into every story is beyond me. I think it must be some type of politically correct statement. Whatever. But I'm beginning to find it tiresome. It feels contrived and forced because it is...contrived and forced.

Anna Pigeon is a likeable enough protagonist who behaves and talks like a real person. I have no gripe with Barr's writing abilities or dialog. But the people in this story get confusing. It is hard to keep the 8 folks in this "lifeboat" type story straight. It is harder still to care about them or care about finding a resolution.

It just felt like 4 long days in the snow surrounded by blackened timbers and a bunch of people you don't like.

Barr has a real handle for characters and Anna is eminently likable in a very human way. She does things that strike the reader as stupid and potentially self-destructive and, in that way, it is easy to relate to her. Barr does a nice job of giving us bits and pieces of Anna without giving too much away, so that we're always learning something new about her with each book.

The central mystery of this book does a nice job of bringing together seemingly disparate elements - the strange occurrences firmly rooted in the real world and those seemingly rooted in the spiritual world. There are some nice details here about the superstitions and culture of the Anasazi and Barr does a nice job of providing some detail without sounding like a preachy history teacher. The twist is very interesting and the ending suspenseful and Barr gives us a welcome character in Frederick.

The writing is great and the build up to the end is great but there is no payoff. We have to buy the next book to figure out what is going to happen (I think). Frustrating and disappointing.

Based on the first third of this book, I would give this 4 stars. The characters were interesting, and I was enjoying myself. Then the story really slowed down, with lots of side stuff. Then I figured out I would need to get the next book Deadman's Bluff to finish the story. So minus 1 star for taking a single 1 book story and splitting into 2 books to extort money. And clearly, it would have been 2 short books so filler was added. Another minus star for boring side stories; the Rufus scammer character is interesting in moderation, but after the fly, horserace, golf, ping pong, cat, x-ray vision, etc. scams, it was tiring. They didn't add anything, other than the mildly entertaining "how he tricked the Greek" variety. But they were too long as side stories, and it was ludicrous that the main character and his tacked-on "love" interest kept saying "there's no way he can do this" over and over again. Look, Rufus is a grifter, he will win not by playing by the rules. No reader was saying "yeah, there is no way" rather it was, "ok, what dumb trick will he use." So the dialog seemed contrived to try to make these side stories more dramatic. Didn't work. And in the end, the way that the tournament cheating was done, you probably will have figured out, and it isn't very "wow" to justify buying and reading 2 books. Even though my review sounds negative, I was impressed with the beginning of this book, and I assume that the rest of this book and the 2nd one were boring because the author (editor/publisher) were trying to stretch this out to sell twice as many books. If you just read this book and not the 2nd you really will be unhappy (1 star happy). However, given the good beginning of this book, I'm going to try Mr. Lucky and give this author 1 more chance. I think he is better than whomever told him to stretch this thin story to two volumes. The author seems to have a great sense of gambling, Atlantic City, and grifters. If these 2 books were 1, and tightened up by dropping a ton of Rufus stuff, this would be 4 stars!

Another in the author's series of novels featuring Tony Valentine, who consults with casinos and law-enforcement about gambling scams and scammers.

In this tale, he and his son Gerry go to Las Vegas to discover how a blind poker player is scamming a poker tournament, which is being televised nationally by an ESPN-like cable sports network.

A few of the regular characters reappear, and there are two great new ones--a female reporter for the network, who Valentine develops a relationship with, and a 72-year-old grifter named Rufus, who among other "wagers" bets a mark that he can beat a horse and jockey in a 100-yard race.

There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor, with one chapter concluding with a plea to bring over a flamethrower. Wait for it.

Warning: at the end of the novel Valentine is halfway to the solution, but the sequel, "Deadman's Bluff," has been published. Some may object to this carving-up of a single tale, but really--the side stories are as interesting as the main plot, so I, for one, don't much mind.

I really like Swain. I really like Valentine. I even kinda like his kid. I'm not too sure about this novel. You see it's not finished. There's some strange, fatal method of winning at poker - maybe like what killed that Russian spy_ but after a lot of novel we do not yet know. Nor does Tony. I sure hope no one climbs up a rope and disappears in the follow up. You see, there is an old con man who makes and wins absurd bets with gamblers in Las Vegas. I suspect the chances of getting away with those bets would be about the same as not experiencing leg breaking ,cause they are on the order of "Betcha I can tell you where you got them shoes." So here we are anticipating a resolution to the surefire poker win and are only half the way there while being entertained with side shows. Maybe Swain needed some cash and had only half the novel done. After all, the carnie makes as much geeking as on the midway. I hope that's it cause now I am waiting for the follow up. Hooked I guess.Decide for yourself. Double or nothing. Watta bet!!!

The problem with some author's today is that they decide (or their publishers encourage them) to write a 2 part-er. Then, they do not let you knw this on the cover (probably so if you read the paperback, you can then buy the hardcover). The problem with these books is that the 2nd part usually spends a lot of time covering the same ground as the first book, and (as reviewers already state for book #2 - Deadman's bluff - you do not even need to read this one to appreciate that work!).

Otherwise this would get 4 stars. Swain's writing is much better, and his plot points no longer carry the huge unbelievable stretches of imagination (like actual mind reading monkeys) that his earlier works do. One good aspect of Swain's books is that the author allows us to enjoy Vegas while at the same time not hiding his personal distain for the gambling mecca.

I recommend this, as long as you know it is #1 of 2 and though side plot points will be solved, the main case will not until you read "bluff."

Having not been to Las Vegas in 5 years I knew I needed to catch up on what was new. This book was very helpful especially with picking restaurants and dining options which was our entertainment. It is a great source of information on every topic. I would recommend it to a novice or repeat traveler.

Speedy delivery. Book in very good condition. I needed to know location of hotels and where excellent restarants were in relation to that. Very helpful reading even though it is a 2003 volume, I have a grasp of the basics and can work from there. Thank you for your services.

Out of the many travel books for Las Vegas that I own, this is one of the biggest. That's not to say that it's too big to bring with you! It's just that, at 472 pages, this provides by far the most information on the Las Vegas destination. It covers far more hotels, restaurants, golf courses, spas, etc. than any other book I have.

I love the charts in this book. One chart shows you every hotel in the area with the type of food, entertainment, pool, exercise room, etc. that they have. You can quickly scan and see which ones meet your needs. They've got reviews of the various nightclubs, describing what they are like in rather good detail. The reviews aren't about "everyone should go here!" They clearly lay out who would enjoy, and who would not enjoy, the particular atmosphere.

There are general restaurant reviews, plus a few "best of" if you're seeking a particular kind of food. The reviews of the shows are really good, and give you a great sense of what is good and not-so-good about each one.

If there's a downside with this book, it's that it focusses ONLY on Vegas - it doesn't go into the surrounding areas very much. But heck, the book is almost 500 pages long!! It does incredible justice to the city and really tells you everything you could want to know about enjoying your time there. If you want a book on other areas, go ahead and buy one. But if you want a book on Vegas itself, this is going to give you what you seek.

Like other Unofficial Guides, this one tries to pack everything under the sun in a heavy paperback, and a lot of the information is already out of date. Frommer's and Fodor's are better because they give you the best. After all, you buy a book so you can save money and time, not to carry an outdated encyclopedia with you when you travel.

I have been buying Bob Sehlinger's "Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas" each year it comes out. I am a seasoned Las Vegas tourist, having been there 20 plus times and let me tell you that he and his staff of writers are always on target. This book is a must for anyone who is going for the first time. Much more friendly and in depth than Fodor's or Frommer's releases, it is written to be, well, readable. You may be asking yourself why I need to keep buying his book year after year if I have gone to Las Vegas so many times. Well, the best answer I have is that the chronological coverage he gives to this dynamic destination is top-notch. I am able to keep abreast of the latest developments and prices within the city. The review for a specific hotel, restaurant, or casino may change from year to year. Anyway, pick one up. You won't be dissapointed.

This book is not one that you will sit down and read over a weekend. It is a slow reader, however the chapters are relativly short. There is typical Mark Twain humor, which I love. I wish there was more of his wit in the book. Not my favorite book by him, but for the love of the author, I read on!

This is the first Mark Twain book that I ever read. It is about his "Going West Young man" around the time of the Civil War. If you like travel books this is a classic. America and Americans, people and human nature and Mark Twain's take on the whole bit. If you have never read any of Mark Twain's non-fiction this is a great place to start. I don't really know if America has produced and funnier, more cleaver humorist than this man. If we have I have yet to find him. This book will never die - not as long as there are humans around with a sense of humor.

If you are into stories about the old west, Twain tells it like it was but with a great humorous twist. A great book, really enjoyed it. Wish I had found it years ago, but better late than never.

No need to beat around the sage brush: this book is fantastic. The funny passages are falling-down funny (the story of the coyote, the cat that fell asleep in a mine shaft, getting "lost" in a snow storm, the mad minister in Hawaii -- on and on it goes). But the bulk of the pleasure this book delivers, in my estimate, lies in Twain's brilliant descriptions -- and they're also a good part of the humor. Partly because behind Twain's humor there often seems to lie a sadness -- and at times a touch of cynicism. When he describes beauty, such as the sunrise over a layer of clouds from the top of a volcano in Maui, he forgets himself, and seems happy. If you know some of the places he visits -- silver mining country near Reno, Lake Tahoe, Mona Lake, San Francisco, the Big Island of Hawaii, Oahu -- it's all the more fun, to compare what has changed, and what hasn't. (According to Twain, he helped change some of it, accidentally starting a forest fire on Lake Tahoe.) The book is long, and almost too rich in humor and interesting anecdotes.

Twain begins by promising not to teach his readers anything. Despite his best efforts, quite a few interesting facts -- about silver and gold mining, eruptions at Kilauea, the Hawaiians, the real Old West -- do creep in, and I can't say they make the book any worse.

I listened to this book on CD, which added another dimension to the fun. Twain is brilliant at mimicry, and the reader matches that brilliance by providing distinct voices for each character that perfectly fit how Twain describes him -- the falling-down-angry drunk, the drunk-to-just-the-stage-to-tell-meandering-stories drunk, the ernest minister who talks about turnips and his correspondence with Horace Greeley, the dying vagabond who can't die without repeating Nevada's national anecdote, and so on.

If I can find the taped version (don't see them here), I'll probably get a copy or two to give away as Christmas presents -- a great way to wile the hours away on the road, especially if you're following in Samuel Clemens' meandering footsteps.

The Virginian (Signet Classics)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

When I was reseachering The Shopkeeper, I found two books especially valuable; The Virginian by Owen Wister, and and Roughing it by Mark Twain. Both were written by men who had actually experienced the Wild West first hand.

Mark Twain is best known for The adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Nowadays, most people forget that he also wrote travel memoirs. Roughing It describes his adventures roaming the Old West, with special emphasis on California and Nevada.

Twain, above all, was a humorist and he told tall tales - engagingly. I put this book in a class with Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. Both reveal the good-natured man behind the world-renown accomplishments. Neither may be completely factual, but both give us a peek behind the curtain and entertain us to this day.
The Shut Mouth Society
The Shopkeeper

Ms. Barr does a good job of bringing back characters from earlier books in the series as participants in her novels. It is interesting to follow Anna Pigeon's relationships as they transcend each book in the series and follow how you feel about each character from one novel to the next. Also, there is always a healthy crop of new characters that you learn about as well. In this one, you not only travel with Anna as she works to solve a mystery, but also how she reconnects with Stanton Frederick, who comes back from an earlier novel to help her solve the case. In all, a great read with lots of mystery and great characters to follow through the maze of facts and lies that ultimately leads to finding out who the bad actors are.

Anna's move to Mesa Verde National Park from Isle Royale sets her on track to solve another mystery. Reading this book was a delight because it was more than 50 years ago when I visited Mesa Verde and found it to be one of the most fascinating places five of us Boy Scouts experienced on a 5,000-mile journey through the West. It was good to find that the place retains its special charm. Nevada Barr's ability to provide fine details about the characters and an intriguing plot make this book one you shouldn't miss.

Ill Wind is my third Anna Pigeon novel. Author Nevada Barr (I still wonder if this is her real name) has Ranger Pigeon living with the noisy seasonals, drinking hard, making friends, and... solving a murder.

Pigeon continues her string of "close misses" in her life and in her caseload.

A well-liked temporary ranger is found dead in an Anasazi structure. Is it a natural death, or murder staged to look natural? Pigeon, along with FBI colleague Fred Stanton, analyze every clue to unravel this mystery. Are the Anasazi ruins haunted? Are environmentalists resorting to murder to keep development from occurring?

Anna Pigeon finds out.

No murder in the first chapter here. This book unfolds slowly, with 100 pages under your belt before the foul deed is uncovered. Anna's drinking problem is in full view. She is a very imperfect person.

I have to admit that I thought I had uncovered the mystery fairly early. "Oh, brother," I thought. "That is so obvious."

It wasn't. Theory number two fell by the wayside as well.

Nevada Barr's mysteries are as good as those written by Dick Francis. And if you have an interest in the layout and management of our national parks, these mysteries are brain candy. Enjoy.

Winds always blow across the barren landscape of Mesa Verde National Park, but Anna Pigeon finds them deadly with the murder and the death of a child. One of the great mysteries of the southwest are the Anasazi who left behind beautiful pottery and tiny fragments of their once flourishing civilization.
Nevada Barr captures the marvelous wind cut features of the park in her third Anna Pigeon (park ranger) mystery/suspense novel. A tough subject to handle as it has been done so frequently, Ms. Barr's fine writing and style lifts this one above the rest.
A captivating visit with an old friend.
Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.

I always enjoy Barr's novels because they just strike me as so real. She's done an excellent job of creating a likable character in Anna Pigeon. Anna's wisecracks and her flaws and her admirable traits all combine to make her a character with which the reader is comfortable, a person for whom the reader can cheer.

Another plus of these novels are the vivid settings for each and the way in which Barr lovingly describes them. The author's previous experiences as a park ranger give her work an authenticity that is especially striking. There is a great deal of passion in the description of places and it only heightens the way in which places speak so much to Anna while people remain somewhat beyond her reach.

This was a very nicely written mystery with many seemingly disparate threads that the author was able to tie up very neatly at the end. It was suspenseful and intriguing and I always find her books to be quick reads because they are so compelling that I devour them, eager to find out what will happen next.

This is my 2nd Tony Valentine book. Like the other, this one is loads of fun and sucks you in and keeps you turning the pages. Not going to stimulate any new neuron growth, but will keep you happily distracted and entertained for a few hours.

Story starts out from a pretty simple premise, but new layers/complications keep getting added until you've got yourself a full-blown terrorist threat. The events are a bit of a reach, but close enough that it doesn't lose you.

Naturally, Tony saves the day with an ending that's a bit over the top. But the rest of the story is pretty grounded and plausible. And the characters are vividly sketched, with many of them, including Tony, being quite likeable and empathetic.

And, of course, there are any number of subplots going on all the while - Tony's son, new baby, solving various cheating schemes (usually in, like, 5 seconds which streches credibility a bit - especially the one where his assistant figures out a cheating scheme over the phone by reading a textbook). But anyway, the subplots all tie in somehow and help to keep things moving quickly without getting too convoluted.

So, very solid effort and I recommend this as a perfect beach read, long flight, etc.

Retired cop turned casino consultant Tony Valentine is back in Vegas on a job, and searching for his screw-up son Gerry, when he spies a woman bearing a strong resemblance to his deceased wife getting ready to jump off her balcony. Tony races away from a meeting with three high-buck casino bosses and to the aid of Lucy Price, who's feeling suicidal after her $25,000 winnings are stolen. Of course, this is all just part of a bigger scam happening at the Acropolis Casino next door, an old-style Vegas joint complete with statues of its owner's ex-wives out front. Nick Nicocropolis and Valentine go back, so Valentine readily agrees to help catch the scammers, who are led once again by the legendary Frank Fontaine, who Valentine has tangled with before.

Much more is at stake, however, when Gerry Valentine teams up with a couple guys from card counting school who are up to no good. Ripping off casinos is only a part of the evil schemes his new companions are up to, and soon Gerry is in so deep he has no one but the old man to turn to.

While not as much fun as Swain's last effort, and relying a bit heavily on a cast of warmed-over characters from his first novel, this is nonetheless another entertaining tale in the Tony Valentine saga. We get a few more peeks into the characters, but I could have used a tad more, since Valentine's last novel was so good.

This entry in James Swain's Tony Valentine series is stuffed with character, action, plot, a subplot, Oedipal conflicts, and as an extra added bonus, tips on gambling scams.

Valentine, the retired Atlantic City cop turned gambling consultant to casinos, is one of the great new heroes in the thriller genre.

The dialog's crispy, you'll care for the characters, you'll forget lunch, you'll forget dinner.

One click it now!

Loaded Dice was very entertaining. During the five days that Tony Valentine(the protagonist)spends in Las Vegas, he discovers a scheme that cheats a casino, is accused of murder, has a short romance with an addicted gambler, saves his son, and gets involved with terrorists. Tony did all the work and I relaxed. This is a very easy read and there is lots of interesting information about methods of cheating at games. I recommend this book.

I read Sucker Bet by James Swain as well and I must say he brings good stuff that can be great. However, ending is such a "Hollywood" formula that I cannot give 4 or 5 stars.

As with other book by James Swain, he starts off great so he will suck you in but at the end, it fizzles.... and disappoints.

If you have nothing else on your reading list, pick it up and read it but don't expect an original ending.